Peeves make great pets

So you're a reporter assigned to write a story about a new book coming out by the pope, his holiness, the Vicar of Christ, current occupant of the chair of St. Peter, that prince among princes of the church John Paul II. You comb through it for material and find that there is a lot there. To wit, the pope goes on at some length about how "he is convinced the Turkish gunman who shot him in 1981 did not act alone and suggests" -- rather forcefully -- "that the former Communist Bloc may have been behind the plot to kill him."

But wait, there's more! Controversies have already sprouted like dandelions in Germany when leaked excerpts from the book caused some Jewish groups to get their backs up over the pontiff's comparison of abortion to the Holocaust.

In a few sections of the book, the pope remembers and rages against Nazism and the Communism, two ideologies that he confronted and outlasted, and does a bit of crowing.

And then there's the bookkeeping stuff: geopolitical musings applying Catholic interpretations of natural law to world events, including the shape of the European Union and the prospects of gay marriage.

What's the headline, and what do you lead with? Click on this Reuters story to find out.


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